Following a cyclone event in far north Queensland the Bloomfield Road between Port Douglas & Cooktown in the Daintree Rain forest was severely
damaged with many sections of this important tourist and local community route affected by landslips. As part of a major road reconstruction project, Cooktown Shire Council engaged EarthTEC to complete a comprehensive package of remediation works designed by Cairns based consulting engineers Golders Geotechnical.

The scope of works extended over a1km section of road & included four major slip sites, there location & protection of a Telstra fibre optic line,excavation, rip-rap toe protection, rock mattress, gabions, Terramesh soil reinforced walls, soil nailing, rock
fall protection mesh, concrete, drainage,asphalt & re-vegetation. As this is the only coastal road north, maintaining traffic flow was essential

The Roads and Traffic Authority (NSW) project involved the design, supply and install an approved 170m long Reinforced Soil Wall (RSW) as part of the Central Coast Highway Upgrade.
The wall design required careful con-sideration of existing land contours, ground conditions and traffic loads as some sections of the wall footing would be in uncontrolled fill zones.
To provide a suitable base for the wall which had high bearing pressures to exert on the foundation these uncon-trolled fills were removed and re-placed with cement stabilised materi-als.
In addition, the RSW design needed to incorporate a large existing seg-mental block retaining wall located behind the backfill zone of the new wall.
The challenge was to ensure that drainage from the existing block wall outlets was captured and integrated into the new RSW drainage design to discharge groundwater from the back-
fill zone, thereby relieving any pore water pressure exerted on the wall face

The Qualia Resort on Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays is one of the first five star resorts in Australia. To complement the sites’ natural features, gabion walls were selected for the majority of the earth retaining walls. After a less than successful start with another wall contractor, Hamilton Island Enterprises engaged specialist retaining wall contractor EarthTEC. “Our works program required EarthTEC’s team to co-ordinate their activities to suit other site work, like foundation preparation and earthwork filling operations, said Jason White, Civil Construction Manager of Hamilton Island Enterprises. “This also required special attention to safety when working around others.” The works involved the construction of a series of retaining walls around the development, some of which were 4 - 5 metres high. Of particular significance was the helipad walls which required a concave face, using flexible woven mesh gabions which provided a suitable first impression to the resort for guests arriving by air.

EarthTEC is pleased to be associated with the Master Builders Association Excellence in Construction Award, winning CSU School of Dentistry project.
The architectural grade gabion work framing the central courtyard and other landscape areas is becoming a regular feature of landmark projects since EarthTEC introduced this concept using Maccaferri products at the Svarmisk Resort in Victoria.

EarthTEC’s scope of work involved supply and installation of gabion walls, Terramesh walls, rein-forced earth, and architectural fa-cades totaling approximately 500 sqm.
Working with the woven mesh cages provides additional durabil-ity via the Galmac and PVC-coating. However, the flexible mesh does require a much higher level of care and skill to ensure the face tolerances are achieved.
The completed works drew much praise from not only the client but also the Master Builders Association.

The terrain & geology around Baw Baw Shire is particularly prone to landslips and this became all the more apparent during the flooding in February 2011 which resulted in nu-merous landslips and road closures within councils road network.

EarthTEC was awarded 8 sites on the Yarragon-Leongatha Road, some of which were considered to be the most critical (Assessed Risk Ratings ARL1 or ARL 2) & challenging sites includ-ing Site No. 6 pictured above which comprised a 90m long 7m deep land-slip.

The solutions adopted included soil nailing and an innovative top-down construction process incorporating a weldmesh gabion type facing which in conjunction with the soil nails provided temporary stability to the road for-mation during construction as well as being an integral part of the complet-ed structure. We believe this to be the first time this innovative construction method has been used both EarthTEC and SMEC’s engineer were impressed with the results.